Chapter Text
Han Solo couldn’t breathe.
Attempting to gasp for oxygen as he came to, He could barely grasp his surroundings as suffocation initially made it near-impossible to think. Running on panic and survival instincts alone, Solo took the incentive to scramble to his feet and physically claw his way out of whatever predicament he had been tossed into while he was unconscious.
But he couldn’t. Han couldn’t move. Distraught, he tried to shout for help— but nothing came out, as if his vocal cords were clipped and his mouth had been sewn shut.
It wasn’t quite paralysis, no— though the realization that Han couldn’t move prompted further attempts to writhe himself out of this chokehold, it quickly came apparent that it was as if there was nothing to move in the first place. Panic temporarily fizzled into acute, mind-racing confusion. Han knew he hadn’t been breathing for some time, and even being aware of that irked him— but the suffocation itself wasn’t painful. In a denial-riddled last ditch effort, Solo attempted to bring his hands to his line of vision— a project that failed just as miserably as his escape plan.
Wherever he happened to end up was silent. Quieter than silent. Every place in the galaxy had some sort of background hum— the buzz of a crowd, wind, the whirring of electronics. Yet here, nothing accompanied the deafening, abnormal quiet. Sound didn’t exist here. The darkness was equally disturbing. Never had Han been blanketed in such endless, merciless pitch black— No, not even black. Darker.
Where was he? Why couldn’t he move? Why didn’t he have a body to move? If he can’t breathe, how the hell is he still alive, let alone awake? Where is everyone? Are they okay? Is Leia okay?
Leia.
Oh my god.
Memories flooded back into his consciousness, and he understood.
It knocked him out at first— That explains why it felt as if he woke up here. The events leading up to his being knocked unconscious slowly returned to him as his questions became answered, his morbid curiosity being abruptly replaced with complete, overwhelming dread.
Han survived being frozen in carbonite, and he was wide awake.
No, No— None of this made sense. They called it hibernation for a reason. If the freezing process didn’t kill you, surely it was akin to being put into comatose. Perhaps there was a mistake. Bespin’s equipment was in terrible shape, anyways— this couldn’t possibly be intentional. This couldn’t possibly be happening.
Attempting to Logically make out the circumstances of this new prison, Han first went through his senses. He already knew he was essentially deaf, blind, paralyzed, and numb while frozen— he quickly realized smell and taste followed suit. Being aware while physically in suspended animation was by no means painful— but the lack of any feeling at all, pleasant or agonizing, was enough to drive a man mad. The concept of loosing his own sanity struck discomfort into the man. Solo couldn’t let that happen to him. He couldn’t.
There was nothing left. The empire reduced Han to a lone, stray conciousness with a slab of metal as its vessel. There was no way to know what was going on outside, What they were about to do to him, how much time had passed since his pseudo-execution. There was no way to stop them, or to free himself. Never had Han been so irreversibly trapped. His attempts to be logical and calm finally slipped, falling and falling and falling into the abyss of his scrambled mind.
Captain Solo wasn’t supposed to be afraid of anything. But this time, he was. He was scared, hell, horrified beyond words, perhaps beyond comprehension.
To the rest of the galaxy, he was dead— His corpse a trophy for the empire, the vessel he found himself suspended in his casket. Everything Han had ever known, Everything he worked for, was gone. All but his racing, constantly racing thoughts, thoughts which provided no solace to this purgatory, remained.
Han wanted to scream.